


binding pain

by KicktheMatt



Category: Dragalia Lost (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gender Dysphoria, Luca is trans god damn it, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KicktheMatt/pseuds/KicktheMatt
Summary: a character study of luca, who belongs to the trans guys. cygames, please, let us have himwarning: a lil sad? mostly just luca being dysphoric





	binding pain

He hadn’t felt this sort of pain in a while.

It took his village a little bit to get used to who Luca is-- when he started insisting he was male and asking the seamstresses of the village to create a garment to flatten his chest. It started when he was so young, however: the Sylvans had a while to get used to it. He went from Luciella to Luca. Female to male. Now, no Sylvan bats an eye at Luca when he passes by. They’ve all accepted him for who he is. He’s incredibly thankful for this, but he didn’t realize that the entire continent perhaps hasn’t accepted him yet. 

Luca physically couldn’t remember the last time he was called “she”. He couldn’t remember the last time he was called “ma’am” or “young lady”. 

God, why now?

Maybe it was an honest mistake, maybe it was with malice. Luca couldn’t tell the difference, what mattered was that he was called “she”. 

It hurt. It hurt so much. He had spent all of his time making sure he passed the best he could, but that one word made everything feel worthless.

Tears welled in his eyes, but he willed them away. “Ah, I’m terribly sorry--” he said, “I’m male. My hair makes it challenging to tell sometimes, I know,” Perhaps the person bought it.

The look they gave said otherwise.

God, why does this always happen? 

The encounter came and gone, but the disgust and hyper-awareness of Luca’s feminine features did not. 

That night, he lay in his bed, dreading the moment he’d have to take off his binder to sleep. He refused to look in a mirror-- he was afraid of what he’d see. Would he see some pitiful, weak girl trying to be like the boys? That’s what he felt he was seen as: even years after being comfortable with himself, one little thing can distort all of that comfort. 

His ribs ached. His shoulders felt incredibly tense. “Damn it,” he hissed to himself, sitting up to take off the binder. He grabbed the bottom edge to lift it over his head, then hurled it onto the floor and crawled under the blanket as quickly as he could. He hadn’t had any real feeling in his chest after years of binding, but now it felt like lead weights were attached to the front of his lungs.

He stretched, making sure every bit of his torso got a good stretching in before laying down finally for sleep. Tomorrow is a new day. Perhaps tomorrow he won’t be in so much pain.


End file.
